We live in the era of the data gold rush. Governments tracking your movements, corporations keeping a tab on your digital footprints to give you targeted ads, desktop programs and smartphone apps using clauses in user license agreements to record and sell data like your browsing habits and shopping preferences—no one likes that feeling of constantly being watched. While common forms of private web browsing like using Chrome’s Incognito mode, or Microsoft Edge’s InPrivate mode will prevent others who use the PC or smartphone from going through your browsing history, their degree of “privacy” is limited. You’re not really anonymous, since your ISP can still monitor the sites you visit. The Tor Project comes in for complete anonymity.
Short for “The Onion Router”, Tor has been developed to keep you anonymous while browsing, ensuring that your location and identity are always private, and that there won’t be any tracks of your online activities. This software was initially developed in the 90s by the United States Naval Research Lab to cloak their activities and ensure that they wouldn’t be traced back to them. It uses an onion-like layering technique—hence the name, concealing information on location and user activity. While it has its roots in military use, it is now free and open-source, and used all over the world—from fostering democracy and dissemination of information within authoritarian states, to the average internet Joe simply looking to surf the web without feeling that they are under a microscope. Here is how you can use it:
Installing Tor Browser
- Head on over to Tor Project and download the software version that suits your operating system.
- Run the installer, and once it’s complete click “Finish” to launch it.
- A settings dialog will pop up, with settings to connect to the Tor network. Simply click the “Connect” button. However, if you’re connecting to the internet via proxy, click the “Configure” button and key in the settings.